According to Amazon, there are approximately 1600 toys for babies. Hope you have a big house.

So how many of these wonderfully colorful, musical, chewable gizmos does your baby need? I’ll let you and your baby’s grandparents decide that for yourselves.

Yesterday, Giggles was getting fussy after her dinner and before ours. None of the normal things were perking her up. One of our last resorts before handing in the towel and putting her back to bed is to let her lay on her back on the ground and kick her legs. Even that didn’t work.

In a moment of boredom, I picked up a placement that I bought Pookie and Geetle the other day. It’s just one of those laminated things about 12″ by 18″ and shows the alphabet letters in sign language. I practiced a couple letters with Geetle and Pookie but they were too distracted by the new Polly Pockets BeAGoodMom bought them on eBay that arrived yesterday.

I held the placemat about a foot over Giggles head and her eyes got the size of quarters and started darting all over the placemat while she started babbling. I held it up for about 5 minutes and then flipped it over for another 5 minutes and then back and forth a few more times. We spend about 15-20 minutes looking at the placemat and singing the alphabet. She loved it. The placemat cost me about $1 the other day.

About an hour later I put her to bed. She was staring at my head and holding her hands together over her chest while I was dressing her. I lowered my head when she put her hands down. She reached back out and was startled when she actually touched my face. She lowered her hands and raised them about 20 more times before starting to get bored.

I’m a big fan of some of the new toys (as long as they don’t make sound - those almost always bug me) but most of the time I think babies prefer pictures and faces more than the toys.